Saturday, March 30, 2013

This month at Stamp Club we focused on watercoloring techniques. I think the top card is my favorite of the two. On that one we actually used watercolor paper. The large flower images were a good choice because we had more space to actually color in and practice the technique. Which do you like best?

Friday, March 29, 2013

Welcome back to the final day in the My Favorite Things Headless Stamp giveaway! Remember to go back and look at Wednesday and Thursday's blog posts. Leave a comment on today's post by midnight on Saturday and you could win your very own My Favorite Things stamp (donated to Operation Write Home) and find out how much fun these Headless Stamps really are. (For the back story on the Headless Stamps, read all of Wednesday's post HERE.)

To be eligible to win, in your comment you must tell me:(1) which card is your favorite and (2) why

Thursday, March 28, 2013

If you didn't see my blog post yesterday, then you will want to click HERE for the back story on this particular stamp.

Today, in addition to the Who's That Garden Girl stamp, I've also used a sentiment from the My Favorite Things Can Ya Dig It? set. Since I had the SU! Twitterpated DSP out, all three cards use it. On this card, I also used the Operation Write Home Stars & Stamps Sketch #18 along with my trusty Creative Memories square punches so that it was a cinch to make all those little squares.

Remember, if you want to win your very own Headless Stamp set (donated to Operation Write Home by My Favorite Things), then be sure to visit my blog posts from yesterday, today and tomorrow so you can leave a comment TOMORROW letting me know which card is your favorite and WHY!

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Okay, we've all had a good laugh about how creepy the headless stamps from My Favorite Things are, BUT now that I forced myself to use one, I think I really like them!! If you don't like to color skin and hair, then these are definitely the stamps for you. In fact, I liked Who's That Garden Girl so much that I made 3 different cards with the same image which I will reveal here on my blog over the next three days. This stamp set is no longer being sold, but if you search "Who's That" on the My Favorite Things store website, you will find several headless stamps for sale.

Be sure to come back tomorrow and Friday because if you leave a comment on Friday telling me which one is your favorite card and why, you will have a chance to win your very own headless stamps from My Favorite Things (these were generously donated to Operation Write Home)!

I'm also entering this card in the WOW Wednesday Challenge at Cat's Creations Scrapbooks blog. You can enter to win blog candy in that challenge by linking up a creation of your own or just by commenting on the blogs of the participants! In fact, this week's winner was Donna R. who commented on MY blog last Wednesday - WOOHOO!!!

Tuesday, March 26, 2013

This month's OWH Design Bootcamp class was called Anyway You Slice It and dealt with composition and the rule of thirds. Here's my card which you will see and learn more about on April 4, but I needed to post it in March for the Bootcamp Challenge! I made this card for the Pattern Play class at Online Card Classes. I saw someone else's idea to make an overlay with the rule of thirds and thought that was pure genius, especially for someone as OCD as I am. So, of course, I had to make my own. I actually completed this card and THEN put the overlay on top of it. I thought it was interesting that I did pretty well. Maybe next time I'll put the overlay on the card BEFORE I glue everything down! :-)

Monday, March 25, 2013

Spring Break is over and now we are counting the days until the end of school. (Well, all of us who are teachers are, anyway! LOL) For the past three years I have been in charge of collecting money for year-end teacher gifts. This year is a milestone because it is my daughter's last year in elementary school. I always make cards to present the gift cards to all of the teachers (about 18 in all - classroom teachers, PE, Art, Music, Spanish/French, etc.) but thought I might make matchboxes with chocolate nuggets inside for all of them this year. Over Spring Break, I gave it a try and did 4 of them - whoa, Nelly, did it take me some time. Not sure I'll get 18 of them done, but I at least got 4 done for the classroom teachers!

This was a fun way to learn how to color an image. It's nice for someone else to tell me where the shading should go - that's usually my biggest struggle! My only problem with a live online class like this is that I'm very slow at coloring and had a difficult time keeping up. BUT, she provides everyone in the class with a PDF file of the colored images so that you can go back and work at your own pace any time you want to!

Here are the two cupcakes I managed to color:

On the first one, my reds bled a lot. To resolve this issue, I colored the flower and leaves from another cupcake (I had 9 images printed after all!) and then fussy cut and adhered with dimensional adhesive to the original cupcake. I like how this turned out in the end, although I should have colored the center of the flower a different color. A pale yellow would have been better.

This is the one that Sandy described as the German Chocolate cupcake. I didn't have the exact marker colors she used but tried to come close with the browns I had. My greens bled outside the edges a bit, so I may have to fussy cut this one to use it on a card.

Be on the lookout for my completed cards using my newly colored images! :-)

Friday, March 22, 2013

If you follow my blog, then you know that I love to CASE other people's cards. That means if I see something I like, then I want to re-create it. In my mind, this is one of the highest compliments that can be paid to another card maker! Today I'm CASE'ing a card by Lisa Oliver - a fellow OWH card maker and fellow Doodle Pantry Design Team member. I love the polka dot ribbon - the way she used it makes it lie very flat which is perfect for cards that go overseas to our troops and back again to their families and friends! This card was so much fun to make that I made several at one time.

Wednesday, March 20, 2013

My daughter LOVES unicorns and dragons, so when I saw this sentiment from Create with TLC, I knew I had to use it on a card! It says "Always Be Yourself...Unless You Can Be a Unicorn." How fun and whimsical is that!

I love this Lawn Fawn Critters Ever After stamp set. Not only does it have a unicorn, but it also has a dragon so I had to have it! This set even appeared in Zooey Deschanel's Gift Guide in People magazine, but I owned it BEFORE that - aren't I trendy?!

I'm entering this card in WOW Wednesday at Cat's Creations Scrapbooks. Every week is Anything Goes - link up any creation you make or just comment on others submissions - both earn you a chance to win! This card is kids' card #19 - just one more to reach my goal!!!

Monday, March 18, 2013

Wow, I am finally on a roll with kids' cards and almost to my goal of 20 cards to honor the 20 angels who were killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary tragedy.

Here are cards #17 and 18 using Doodle Pantry's Quirky Frog set. I used the pre-colored image, one of the sentiments and one of the digi papers. I also used a sentiment from the Easter Frog Pals set. The Quirky Frog set comes with the outline and pre-colored images with and without lily pads, as a pair of frogs and each individually along with 6 sentiments and 3 digi papers - all for just $2.75! How can you beat that deal!!! Some other digi stamp companies give you only one outline image for the same price. Subscribe to the monthly newsletter and find out about special discounts Laurie offers so you won't miss out!

The ribbon is from Really Reasonable Ribbon - another great online company. I was a member of the Really Reasonable Ribbon club for a full year (just $9.00 per month for a ton of ribbon) and really built up my stash of beautiful ribbons. Now I have some favorites that I have used up and bought more of! Bonnie offers very personal service, too. Follow their blog for lots of ideas of how to use ribbon - not just on cards!

Friday, March 15, 2013

Here are the last of my nursery rhyme kids' cards using images from Melonheadz Illustrating and Basic Grey paper. These are all going to Operation Write Home as I work toward making 20 kids' cards to honor the 20 angels in heaven from the Sandy Hook Elementary tragedy. These are kids' cards #15 and 16! I feel like I'm finally on a roll, but it took me some time to get my kids' card mojo going.

Wednesday, March 13, 2013

We are halfway through our Spring Break today - what better way to celebrate spring than with a card that celebrates baseball! These cards are going in my Operation Write Home box as I near my goal of making 20 kids' cards to honor the 20 children who were killed in the Sandy Hook Elementary tragedy. Today's cards are #13 and 14!

Look below the cards for links to the fun challenges I'm entering. Every Wednesday you can win by playing along or simply by commenting at the WOW Wednesday Challenge at Cat's Creations Scrapbooks. Every month Doodle Pantry will give you a FREE image set just for playing along in their challenge as well as a chance to win a gift certificate. And, every month Our Daily Bread Designs hosts a challenge at Operation Write Home. If we have 50 entries, they sponsor the shipping costs of 2 boxes and they give away 2 gift certificates to their store. WOW - What generous people crafters are! What are you waiting for - go play along, too!

Monday, March 11, 2013

I promised you more Nursery Rhyme cards in my quest to make 20 kids' cards to honor the children who were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary. The first batch can be found HERE. These are all going to Operation Write Home. These are kids' cards #11 and 12 if you are keeping count with me.

Saturday, March 9, 2013

WELCOME! If you came here from Marlene's blog, you are on the right track. If you just happened upon my post, you can go to the OWH Stars & Stamps blog to start at the beginning of this fun blog skip!

Stamper's Best is releasing 3 new stamp sets designed by Operation Write Home's leader extraordinaire Sandy Allnock. These are fundraiser stamps, so a portion of the proceeds will be donated to OWH. Thank you, Stamper's Best for all you do to support our troops and their families!

Stamper's Best has other fundraiser stamps for Operation Write Home, too. Click HERE to see another card I made with a digi stamp that only costs $1!

To celebrate, some of us on the blog team are participating in a skip to spotlight these new sets. Here's the best news of all for you. If you buy 2 of these sets, you will get the 3rd set FREE! What are you waiting for, click HERE to go shopping NOW!

I will be giving away some blog candy from My Favorite Things (these stamps and dies were donated to OWH - thank you, My Favorite Things!). How to qualify, you ask? (1) Become a follower if you aren't already and (2) leave a comment. Easy peasy! I will choose a winner on Sunday night by 9 PM Central and announce the name here on Monday morning. So be sure to come back to see if you are a winner. The winner must claim their prize by Wednesday!

The next stop on the blog skip is Sandy Allnock's blog - what could be better than cards made by the person who created the stamps?! Have a great time and come back soon. :-)

Wednesday, March 6, 2013

Today I have some cards that I cased from Bonnie Garby at Make Time 2 Craft and Really Reasonable Ribbon. I just love her crisp and clean style. Many of the cards I have CASE'd from Bonnie are very easy to make multiples of. Check back on this post for another card of hers I CASE'd several times! Thanks, Bonnie, for providing such wonderful inspiration.

I made mine into a Mother's Day card because the OWH deadline for Mother's Day is fast approaching - it's March 31! I hadn't made any Mother's Day cards yet. What was I thinking?! I made 10 of these to go in my OWH box this month. I'm also entering it in the WOW Wednesday Challenge at Cat's Creations Scrapbooks - make something or just comment to be eligible to win every week!

Monday, March 4, 2013

This month at Stamp Club with Christi Beck we made product showcase cards - that means there was a lot of little things on our cards and we used lots of different products. One was easy for me and the other was quite the challenge. Read on to find out just what I mean!

This was the "easy" card. While it had lots of little pieces, the stamping part was pretty straightforward.

On the other card, this is the card I dubbed the one "only a mother could love!" Let me point out all the imperfections in my stamping. On the rose, I got some of the red ink onto the green leaves. The "practice" one I did, of course, was perfect! On the sentiment, you will notice that I didn't get the "o" stamped very well and there is an outline shadow on the left side. Then, on that cute little flag peeking out, we had to stamp in Pool Party with one stamp set and then stamp right on top in the brown with another stamp set. I just knew I wouldn't be able to get it lined up - and I didn't! LOL

So, Mom, since this is a card only a mother could love, look for it in your mailbox! :-)

Friday, March 1, 2013

WOW! I actually sat down and made some cards that I used myself and didn't send to Operation Write Home. It felt kind of weird because the only ones I usually make that don't go in my OWH box are family birthday cards and my Christmas cards!

The card with lots of pink and bling went to my great-aunt who is in a rehab hospital recovering from a few different ailments she suffered with over the Christmas holidays. The other was mailed to the dad of my high school boyfriend to try to pass on information about our upcoming 30th high school reunion this summer. Is it weird that I still send a Christmas card to my high school boyfriend's dad? He actually called me after receiving my Christmas card a couple of years ago just to chat and catch up. That's what I *LOVE* about cards, especially handmade cards - they're so much more personal than an email!